Materials for floor and wall coverings should possess a wide variety of properties which are sometimes not compatible. An important property of materials for floor and wall coverings is a good conformability to uneven or contoured surfaces to allow efficient application of the material to floors and walls. Particularly important for materials used for floor coverings are good wear, abrasion, scratch and indentation resistance and good indentation recovery to reduce visible scratches and indentations of furniture and rolling objects, such as office chairs. Materials for floor and wall coverings should also allow the inclusion of a high amount of a usual filler to allow the production of floor and wall coverings of a wide hardness range. The desired hardness of a flooring material varies widely depending on where the floor covering is used, for example in public or private buildings or on the type of rooms wherein the floor coverings are used. The desired hardness of a flooring material also varies widely depending on its mode of application, for example whether it is applied in the form of endless sheets or in the form of tiles.
Well known floor coverings are based on polyvinyl chloride (PVC). PVC-based materials have many desirable properties, such as good filler acceptance, flexibility and scratch resistance. However, in more recent years attention has focused on the disadvantages of PVC-based flooring, such as its chlorine content which forms hydrogen chloride upon combustion. Therefore, much effort has been made by the skilled artisans to find replacements for PVC-based floor, wall or ceiling coverings.
German patent application DE-A-43 24 137 discusses advantages and disadvantages of various PVC-free floor coverings. It discusses that floor coverings based on ethylene/vinyl acetate copolymers are inexpensive and useful in a wide variety of applications, but that their residual content of vinyl acetate comonomer and their relatively low thermal stability require special precautions in the production of the floor coverings. Floor coverings based on ethylene/butene or ethylene/1-octene copolymers of low density are also mentioned. It is discussed that these copolymers allow high filling which allows to control the flexibility and hardness of the floor. On the other hand, it is said to be difficult to provide these copolymers with a lacquer or a finishing layer to improve their resistance to wear because of the insufficient adhesion between the olefinic copolymer and the lacquer or finishing layer. To solve these problems, DE-A-43 24 127 suggests a multilayer synthetic board wherein at least one layer contains an ethylene/acrylate copolymer. Unfortunately, the ethylene/acrylate copolymer is sticky in the production process and provides low abrasion resistance.
WO 96/04419 discloses a sheet material suitable for use in or as floor covering which comprises a polyalkylene resin in intimate mixture with at least one additive comprising a filler. The polyalkylene resin has a relatively narrow molecular weight distribution (MMD) and a small amount of long chain branching. It is produced by a single site catalyzed polymerization of at least one linear, branched or cyclic alkene having from 2 to 20 carbon atoms. This sheet material has good properties, such as excellent abrasion resistance and high mechanical strength. However, the creep recovery and the scratch resistance of the sheet material is generally not very good.
Evidently no present single material can entirely fulfill the wide range of required and desired properties of floor and wall coverings, which depend on how and where the floor, wall or ceiling covering is applied and used and which often are even incompatible. Therefore, the desired properties are prioritized based on the desired end-use of the floor and wall coverings and the materials are accordingly selected. To increase the variety of materials and material properties which are suitable for floor, wall and ceiling coverings, it would be highly desirable to provide floor, wall and ceiling coverings based on other polymers than those used in the prior art. It would be particularly desirable to provide floor, wall and ceiling coverings which have a good balance of desired properties, particularly sufficient flexibility and conformability to uneven or contoured surfaces for efficient application to floors, walls or ceilings, sufficient scratch resistance, sufficient indentation resistance, indentation recovery and/or sufficient abrasion resistance.